Nebraska Senator relates a personal experience he had with the martyred president.
This article first appeared in the Morning World Herald (Omaha), Saturday, February 13, 1909.
Senator John D. Hatfield, from Antelope county, dined with Abraham Lincoln after his escape from the Libby prison, in 1863, and was shown about the city of Washington, and introduced to both houses of Congress by President Lincoln.
A more detailed account of Hatfield’s capture and escape will be given later. But five days after he slipped through a tunnel under the walls, he reached the Union lines and was sent on to Washington. His coming had been telegraphed ahead and an orderly met Mr. Hatfield at the station and told him to come up to the White house and spend the night with the President.
Captain Hatfield’s clothes were worn and tattered with his hard prison life, his hair was long and he was unshaven and dirty. He would not go that night, but told the orderly that he would go to the White house in the morning.
The report of his being in Washington spread about town, and also the fact that he “was going to see the president.” The next morning a clothier saw him and offered to sell him a uniform and trust him for it.
“But I haven’t any money at all, and don’t know where I will get any,” he replied.
“That don’t make any difference,” said the dealer. “They will probably give you your back pay, and if they don’t, why, I’ll give you the clothes.”
So, in a new uniform and freshly shaven, he was taken to the president by a brother of the governor of Indiana, who had seen him, and volunteered to introduce him.
Abraham Lincoln shook hands with him, sat down, crossed his legs, curled one foot behind the other leg, and the looked at him for a long time, until the captain was embarrassed.
“I always swore,” said Lincoln, “that if I ever found a man that was homelier than I. I was going to kill him. I believe I’ve found him.”
Captain Hatfield was worn out and emaciated from the hardships of the life in Libby prison.
“However,” said Lincoln, “we’ll leave it to my wife.”
When Mrs. Lincoln appeared, she insisted that Mr. Hatfield was better looking than her husband, and so his life was spared him.
“He kept joking that way all the time that I was there,” said Mr. Hatfield.
In the afternoon the president asked him if he had seen the city and then ordered a rig and took him driving about the town, introducing him to both houses of Congress and to several cabinet members, secured his pay for him for the time he was in prison, amounting to over $1,000, and got him transportation back to his home in Illinois with thirty days’ leave of absence.
Captain Hatfield expressed doubt as to his ability to go back to the army that soon and Lincoln said: “One of the orders requires that I do not give more than a thirty-day leave of absence, but at the end of that time write me and I will extend if if you are not well,” and he did extend the time thirty days more.
The next day more of the officers who escaped from the prison arrived in Washington and they were all invited to the Ford theater with the president, the same theater where he was later shot.
Captain Hatfield says, although hundreds of men say that they escaped at the time he did, there were only 109 who got out and about thirty-seven of them who were not recaptured. So far as he knows, he is the only one who is still alive who escaped at that time, because nearly all of them went back into the war and many died from disease or the bullet.
John D. Hatfield, enlisted Sept 3, 1862 as a 2nd Lt. into Co. H, 53rd Illinois Infantry. He took part in engagements at Shiloh, seige of Corinth, Hatchie Bridge, seige of Vicksburg, Jackson, seige of Atlanta and was with Sherman on the famous march to the sea. He was captured on July 12, 1863 at the Battle of Jackson and sent to Libby Prison in Richmond, Virginia. After spending seven months in prison, Hatfield along with 109 other prisoners attempted an escape through a tunnel on February 9, 1864. After six days and nights, he succeeded in reaching Union lines at Williamsburgh. He received the commission of Captain, December 28, 1864 and his honorable discharge July 29, 1865. Mr. Hatfield has been a resident of Neligh since 1885, served the county as treasurer and was elected to the Nebraska Legislature in 1909.